Male breasts are not just unsightly, but having them is also embarrassing for many men. As men gain weight due to unhealthy eating and lack of exercise, excess fat often develops over their pectorals, causing them to look like female breasts. Flattening male breasts requires men to lower their overall body fat percentage. Low-calorie dieting, aerobic exercise and spot training can help men turn unattractive male breasts into a firm, sculpted chest.

Cardiovascular Exercise

Flattening your chest requires you to eliminate the fat covering your pectoral muscles, and the only way to do this is through cardiovascular exercise. Spot training your chest to eliminate fat is not possible; you must do exercises that raise the heart rate, cause you to break a sweat and burn lots of calories. According to Nutristrategy.com, a 155-pound person burns 500 calories or more cycling, swimming, running or stair climbing for one hour. You can also get a good cardiovascular workout and burn a lot of calories playing a variety of sports, including volleyball, football, tennis and soccer. Do 45 minutes or more of cardio at least four days per week to eliminate excess chest and body fat.

Chest Exercises

Exercises that target your chest can enlarge and strengthen your pectoral muscles, giving your chest a sculpted, toned appearance. Bench presses, pushups, chest dips and the butterfly are examples of exercises that target and tone pecs. These strength-training activities not only build muscle mass and density, they also encourage fat loss in the chest and throughout the body. Muscles have a higher metabolic rate than fat, so each muscle that you activate through strength training remains active long after your workout ends. This boosts your calorie-burning potential, helping you to flatten your male breasts quicker. Do eight 12-repetition sets of any chest exercise three to five times weekly to tone your chest and burn more calories.

Circuit Training

Circuit training combines cardiovascular and strength-training workouts, providing a time-crunched fitness routine that burns hundreds of calories. You can experience a 30 percent increase in the amount of calories you burn by combining aerobic and strength-building activities, Fitness magazine reports. Circuit training also makes exercise more exciting by eliminating the boredom associated with doing one exercise for a lengthy time period. Alternating three minutes of rope jumping with three minutes of pushups is an example of circuit training. Circuit train two to three times weekly, and choose strength-training exercises that target your pectorals to sculpt your chest while shedding fat.

Calorie Monitoring

Regardless of how often you exercise, flattening male breasts will be difficult if you continue to consume more calories than you expend. One pound equals 3,500 calories. The average person eats approximately 2,000 calories per day, which means they would need to burn 2,500 calories per day or more to lose a minimum of 1 pound weekly. This may sound impossible, but it can be done through healthy dieting and sufficient exercise. Consume plenty of healthy, low-calorie foods that fill you up quickly, such as fruits, vegetables, lean meats and whole grains. Exercise daily, making sure to incorporate cardiovascular and strength-training exercises into your routine. Use a calorie monitor to track the amount of calories you expend and consume each day, making sure that the number of calories you expend is always higher. Follow this plan, and you'll shed excess fat throughout your body, and the firm, toned pectorals you've worked hard to build will begin to appear.

About the Author

Before starting her writing career, Tanya Brown worked as an eighth-grade language arts teacher. She also has a background in nursing, with extensive experience in urology, neurology and neurosurgery clinics. Brown holds a bachelor's degree in psychology and is pursuing her master’s degree in educational psychology.